There are numerous publications on the Internet about a unique Brazilian city, the entire population of which is women. We decided to check if this is true.

ABOUT settlement called Noiva do Cordeiro, where supposedly live 600 women and no men have been reporting for ten years Media, informational And entertaining portals, resources about travel, blog platform users (LiveJournal, "Zen"") and social networks (Facebook*, "VKontakte"). Some authors claimthat men are prohibited from entering the city, other — that local women, on the contrary, are actively looking for men with whom they can marry.

A settlement called Noiva do Cordeiro (which translates from Portuguese as “bride of the lamb”) does exist in Brazil. He first came to the attention of the media in 2014. Then British publications (e.g. The Mirror, Metro And The Telegraph) published the news: residents of this city, most of whom are between 20 and 35 years old, are desperately in need of husbands, since there is not enough of the local male population. The articles specified that some of them are still married and have families, but spouses are allowed to come only on weekends.

After the release of these notes, journalists BBC decided to find out whether the situation really is as the tabloids described it. They contacted several residents of Noiva do Cordeiro, and they said that they were not conducting any campaign to find husbands. According to them, at that time there were not 600 people living in the settlement, as reported in the articles, but 350. Among them were men, and women aged 20–35 did not make up the majority. Conducting a campaign to attract men to the community refuted And fact checkers from Brazil and other countries.

In 2023, National Geographic magazine published great report from Noiva do Cordeiro. Local residents told reporters about the history of the settlement. It arose at the end of the 19th century, when a girl named Maria Senorinha De Lima came to this place - she and her lover ran away from her husband, to whom she was married off against her will. As punishment, De Lima and her descendants were excommunicated. Later, other anathematized or socially dissident Brazilians joined the couple in exile. This is how a settlement was formed, free from prejudices and dogmas. However, in the 1940s, a Protestant priest, Anisio Pereira, came there, married one of the local residents and founded his own church. With the growth of his influence, the rules in Noiva do Cordeiro seriously tightened: until the death of the priest in 1995, women in the settlement did not have the right to vote and were subordinate to men in everything. However, now it seems to differ little from other villages and small towns in modern Brazil in matters of equality.

The settlement's Facebook page is updated quite actively, with new ones appearing almost every day. photo - on some of which there are men. However, women really predominate in the photographs. How explained AFP agency local resident, most of the male population of the village works in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, two hours away, and returns home only for the weekend. The existence of a ban on their arrival in Noiva do Cordeiro on other days could not be confirmed.

Thus, the settlement of Noiva do Cordeiro in Brazil does exist, but its inhabitants are not exclusively women. Men are not prohibited from entering the city, but many of them do spend most of the week working in the nearest large city and return only on weekends. Reports that residents of Noiva do Cordeiro are so desperate to find a spouse that they are calling on bachelors from all over the world to come to their locality have also not been confirmed.

*Russian authorities think the company Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Facebook, is an extremist organization; its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Cover photo: Facebook Noiva do Cordeiro